Daniel & Ashley Schwarz Odessa, Texas legal guardians charged w/ capital murder for forcing 8 year old girl, Jaylin to jump non-stop on a trampoline in 110-degree heat as form of punishment.
What were they thinking? A Texas couple is facing capital murder charges after forcing an 8-year-old girl to jump non-stop on a trampoline in 110-degree heat as a form of punishment, police said.
Daniel Schwarz, 44, and Ashley Schwarz, 34, of Odessa, were arrested Monday in the death of the child who was pronounced dead at the couple’s home on Aug. 29 when cops responded to a medical call.
‘Investigation revealed that the 8-year-old child had been punished and was not allowed to eat breakfast and was required to jump on the trampoline without stopping for an extended period of time,’ Odessa police said in a statement Monday.
The couple — who reportedly served as guardians of the girl, identified by KOSA as Jaylin — also didn’t allow her to drink any water while she was being punished, police said.
The high temp in Odessa — a city of roughly 123,000 in west Texas — on Aug. 29 was 100 degrees, KWTX reported. But the temperature of the trampoline read to be approximately 110 degrees and the ground was approximately 150 degrees, police said Monday.
How did Daniel & Ashley Schwarz come to be Jaylin’s guardians?
An autopsy determined Jaylin died of dehydration and listed her manner of death as homicide, police said.
While investigating the death, detectives learned that the couple had punished Jaylin by and making her ‘jump on the trampoline without stopping for an extended period of time,’ after forbidding her from eating breakfast, Odessa police said. The suspects also refused to let her drink water ‘because she was not jumping,’ according to the news release.
Daniel and Ashley Schwarz were not Jaylin’s biological parents, but were the girl’s guardians, her relatives told KOSA. It remained unclear how the couple came to be the child’s guardians and how long the girl had resided with the pair.
Also not clear was if the girl was in foster care, a police spokesman told the Odessa American.
The couple was taken into custody at the Ector County Law Enforcement Center, where neither had bonds set as of Monday afternoon.
